Thursday, March 6, 2003

Look, here's a clarification for those folks who aren't getting it or
just don't know it:

"Immaculate Conception" does NOT refer to the birth of Jesus
Christ. It does NOT refer to His divine sex-free conceiving.

The "Immaculate Conception" refers to the conception of Jesus' mother,
Mary. It is the belief that Mary herself was born
without Original Sin, that she was granted grace from the moment of
her conception. It's a major belief in Catholicism, and probably
is helpful for bolstering Mary's high status (e.g., being made Queen of
Heaven following her death).

Now, there are a number of terms that you could apply to the actual birth of
Jesus. Virgin birth, divine birth, so on and so on. There are
probably some neat scientific-sounding terms, like
parthenogenesis, which refers to virgins reproducing (like in
Herland) although not addressing the
spiritual aspect of
the conception.

What it boils down to is that if you think you're being clever or coming
off as especially erudite because you refer to a virgin or divine birth as
"an immaculate conception", knock it off. You're wrong,
and you're just perpetuating the confusion. Don't write sci-fi stories
with nonsexual reproduction and then graft the term
on there for an attempt at depth. Don't try to add layers of Biblical
symbolism to your pop culture commentary by namedropping the term wherever
the woman gets pregnant without a father. C'mon, now.

That really does chap my ass a bit. Some folks will go to the ends of
the earth to research information that is critical of other
religions and cultures: precise quotations from Leviticus that condemn
currently-acceptable behavior like eating shellfish and menstruating in
church, bad passages from Mere Christianity, your favorite
violent passage from the Qur'an here, sendups of easy-to-mock pagan
practices, and so on.

But when it comes to namedropping and appropriating things from other
religions and cultures for a purpose that serves them, pretty
often people just go to town and to hell with the details. Namedrop
Catholic doctrine inappropriately, swipe names of interesting Hindu gods
for personal use, bust out the sacred tribal tattoo kits and culturally
significant jewelry (now on sale at Newbury Comics!), take it all and
do what you like. Bah.